Vol. 1, No. 2
September 15, 2004

 

I will never campaign for a ban on the karaoke/videoke (the k/v, as I would call it here) in residential neighborhoods, even when for several months now since I came back to my province I've been bombarded by trampy soul pop songs from the ambitious singing throats of an immediate neighbor. No, sir, ma'am. I, for my part, delight in puncturing this and other neighbors' comfort silences with my "no minuses" hoard of pretentious intelligentsia rock, rap, classical, world, occasional standards, and what-not music. And it's not because I'm an anarchist or kulang sa pansin. More out of a desire to share my pretensions. Sure, it often gets irksome when my neighbors' covers of Martin Nievera faves and Pinoy soul love song efforts hug our street's limelight, but still, allow me the defense of this very Asian mark of our pride as a people, our new cultural machine.

It's not as if it's a new thing. When today's infinite k/v young stars were still in their diapers and only a few Filipinos could afford a karaoke prototype, Imelda Marcos was already holding k/v parties at Olot, Tolosa, Leyte, or at that house near Mendiola Bridge in Manila, to the enchantment of such international guests as Dracula himself.

What, after all, is a k/v machine? It is but another form of amplification -- but more populist by its accessibility, more democratic. Even as it may likewise work as a CIA profiling tool. Like any other amplification medium, aural or visual (the podium, the TV cam, etc.), the k/v amplifies -- as it were -- certain realities about ourselves and our neighbors, and by that virtue it must perhaps offer invaluable societal functions as well as potential uses for the state. But be warned; the honing of one's language comprehension is rarely one of the k/v's functions, for it has been proven by many a neighborhood singer that the constant singing of English or Tagalog songs does not necessarily make better English/Tagalog speakers or writers out of any of us. Singing, after all, and music-listening, quite often does not require more than a shallow understanding of songs' words, if any understanding is even required. In certain villages, the malpronunciation of words might even be one's badge of belonging. The influence of language upon one's knowledge is better served by more narrative media like cinema or tv gossip. So, what's the k/v worth? Well, the following unique values can perhaps be appreciated, although I insist that appreciate them fully we must.

1. For one, far from the archaic and untrustworthy delays of the word of mouth, the k/v's announcements are instant. Unlike the Irish tradition of pub- or exclusive family get-together singing, our k/v machines are readily public, thus immediately identifying a neighbor as either a good or bad or mediocre or passable singer. The aural manifestation is given as evidence directly to those who need to know. This is a very important utility in our community because -- as it is often said -- singing is a much serious part of Pinoy culture. Decidedly more popular than boring books, it's the self-same activity that guards the harmony in a village.

2. Politically, the k/v machine also becomes very necessary when it begins to serve as a kind of i.d. New Pinoy neighborhoods are not so neighborly anymore; what better medium to introduce our personalities is there, then, than the k/v's sonic imprint that -- at a few arms' length -- stamps on our neighbors' aural jurisprudences the intelligence quotient of our respective musical and/or lyrical status. For instance, one neighbor might have a perfect-10 musical comprehension of timbre and dynamics and octaves and vocal power and so on, while another -- lacking in those -- might have a no-less-commendable perfect-10 grasp of lyrical worth shown by the wisdom of his song choices (and contextual delivery). While one neighbor is wont to purchase pirated videoke cd's of, say, Gary Valenciano songs, another might be offensive to him with a contrasting cd containing Metallica's poetry (or love songs "rock" that mention the rent or the new inflation). In short, the k/v machine -- apart from being a medium of sonic and taste warfare -- becomes a ready stand-in for the long-contemplated citizens i.d. that has yet to see the light of day. The k/v shall thus be able to provide government spies a rounder appreciation of a citizen's Britney Spearsian happy rightism or, on the other hand, another citizen's Gary Granada-esque leftism.

2b. Corollarily, the k/v becomes an extension of the Christian Catholic practice of confession. But instead of rarely confessing to the Church hierarchy, one can confess one's i.q. and politics to the community, sublimating Christian modesty thus to a majestic level hitherto inhabited solely by majestically modest Nobel laureates.

3. The k/v also hastens what used to take a decade or a crime to reach a verdict. When the question arises as to whether a certain neighborhood might be appropriate for establishing a new home, the k/v will offer instant answers. For one, it allows people to see whether they'll be happy in this given place. I would even suggest that governments require real estate agents to require in turn the residents of a neighborhood (new or old) to play their minus-one cds or tapes for any potential future neighbor. New kids in town, in their turn, might demand -- as it shall be their right -- to hear the cd's before making a residential purchase, much like demanding a receipt after making the purchase.

4. For the intelligentsia nd business elite who cater to the philosophy that it's best to keep the majority stupider than us, keep them contented and carefree, I suggest that as annex of the public school system we encourage likewise the distribution of k/v's and Hallmark-esque love-song cd's that will maintain the already rampant lunchtime variety show song-and-dance culture that we've always wanted. After all, it won't do us any good to ruin the ecology when everyone's trying to become a lawyer or business guru. This will bring the nightmare of a total lack of low-wage employees and contractual workers and -- worse -- an absence of (albeit still complaining) non-violent love-song cd consumers.

5. And for those feeling romantic right at this moment, the k/v is very much apt. In lieu of the now-laughable harana on a neighbor, the k/v disguises the very same thing. Without one's getting out of his house, k/v singing's more subtle than having that harana proxy who often needs the serenader at his back.

6. Ultimately, as an impression on the tourist's memory the k/v will show the world just how neighborly Filipinos are -- devoid of sonic fences, working together in tolerating popular romance, democratized musicality, comradely drunkenness, and (behind the misrepresentations of negativistic news) unabashed freedom from the intellectual worries of the CHED. . . .

Of course one almost need not mention the all-so-obvious virtue cum value of the k/v as a proletarian homage to the star system. That system being the unwritten constitution that states the Sharon Cunetaist advocacy wherein one may declare in a vicarious form of civil disobedience, "bukas luluhod ang mga tala". With the k/v, that bukas becomes now. The advocacy inspires many among us to take a star position for a few minutes or within an hour's duration, one's wealthier neighbors in total adherence to the assertion. All this care of the pale simulations and emulations upon the recording studio sound by the glorious provisions of the people's k/v machine. We all delight in this illusion. Perhaps from a deep subconscious realisation that the k/v makes stars out of a million among us, this where show business can only absorb a few. And what about those few? Those Sheryn Regises and Sarah Geronimos? Now, in our k/v generation, they're but our delegates -- representatives of what we've embraced as our new k/v identity.

Then again, in hindsight, remembering Maria Clara in Jose Rizal the movie and then Rogelio de la Rosa in his movies, is this really so new an identity? Is it not but a legacy of a culture shaped to feel the braggadocio's pride and contentment in his "unpretentious" wailing?